


quiet and slow in the midst of

by seventhstar



Series: a covenant with a bright blazing star [16]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Katsuki Yuuri, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Regency, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Mutual Pining, Omega Victor Nikiforov, Regency, Regency Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 23:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16314680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: Viktor finishes the chapter and then throws the book at Yuuri. Yuuri scrambles to catch it, laughing; Viktor looks seriously displeased.“You see?” Yuuri says. “Things are not always what they appear!”“I thought this was a romance,” Viktor says indignantly.“I did tell you it was scandalous.”[part of an ongoing series of fics, telling the story of poor and scandalous trademan's son viktor nikiforov's marriage of convenience to the reclusive lord katsuki]





	quiet and slow in the midst of

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thehandsingsweapon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehandsingsweapon/gifts).



> we are slowly, slowly moving along. next week will be the end of the current plot arc, and then stuff will start to HAPPEN.

_“Why, Gertrude! I cannot believe you were so careless as to dance twice with Duke Matlock in a night!”_

_“Careless? Aunt Margaret, you are the one who said that I should—”_

_“Oh, do not speak to me, you wicked girl! Dancing with a rake like that not once but twice! I do not know how you will hold your head up in society now.”_

_“He cannot be a rake! But he was so charming!”_

_“Of course he was charming, you little fool! Do you imagine alphas become notorious rakes by being crude? One night you are dancing with him, the next you are out in the gardens with him with your knees around your ears!”_

_“My knees around my—Aunt Margaret!”_

_“To think that my own niece could be so stupid! But I ought to have guessed a simple country girl would have no knowledge of how to behave. Well, girl, I will keep a close eye on you now. You shall not even speak to an alpha without my permission. And tighten your collar!”_

_“You are the one who loosened it, because you said my bosom was not enough to attract an alpha. And you are the one who told me to dance with Duke Matlock, because he was rich and unmarried.”_

_“Gertrude, you ought not to tell such lies! To think of what your parents would say. I will have the vapors, just you wait.”_

_Hearing that the Duke she had danced with so often and so well was a rake, hearing that the man she had begun to imagine as her future spouse was deceiving her, hearing that she was nothing more than an amusement for a man she had thought herself quite in love with, Gertrude was desolate. She retreated to her rooms, claiming a headache, and cried herself to sleep. But she was not made for melancholy, and before long began to think on how she might extract her revenge._

 

* * *

 

Viktor finishes the chapter and then throws the book at Yuuri. Yuuri scrambles to catch it, laughing; Viktor looks seriously displeased.

“You see?” Yuuri says. “Things are not always what they appear!”

“I thought this was a romance,” Viktor says indignantly.

“I did tell you it was scandalous.”

Viktor sighs and leans back against his chair. He has taken the comfortable leather one that sits behind Yuuri’s desk; Yuuri has been consigned to the chair facing the desk, which is much less comfortable. It was his father’s way of ending unpleasant meetings, Yuuri has always suspected. He ought to buy a more comfortable one if he and Viktor are to sit in here often. Or maybe not; Yuuri, too, would like to be able to encourage unpleasant visitors to leave. Perhaps he’ll just charm it softer whenever he sits here.

The study is not an ideal place for leisure, of course. Yuuri had meant to go meet Viktor in the library, but had become distracted by a letter from his man in town regarding an investment, and when Viktor had found him he had brought Eros along with him.

“It is entertaining, though,” Viktor says, “for Miss Gertrude to be so easily led. I am curious about what kind of revenge she might extract. Maybe she’ll murder him.”

“The whole of it is convoluted,” Yuuri says. “I agree with you. A murder will liven it up.”

“Generally murders do not ‘liven’ anything.”

Yuuri snorts. “True.”

“Though I don’t understand how a novel about murder would increase our marital felicity,” Viktor adds, “unless our tastes were…peculiar.”

“Perhaps this book is meant to make our marriage look more pleasant by comparison,” Yuuri says, “though you would have good reason to swear revenge on me, would you not?”

“Don’t be absurd, Yuuri.” Viktor leans back in his seat. “If I were to plot to murder you, I would never be so foolish as to admit it."

 

* * *

 

_“Sister, you seem so different from what you were before. I hardly recognize you now.”_

_“My dear Charlotte! I do miss you. When you are out in the world, and are faced with evil, it will change you, too.”_

_“Is it so terrible in London? Mother says there is nothing here but inequity, but she does not have to try to catch a spouse while wearing a dress turned three times over.”_

_“I shall send back my dresses with you, don’t worry about that. And if I marry well, I will divide my dowry up between you all, and you shall each have six thousand pounds for your own.”_

_“You are too good, Gertrude. Is it true? Has a Duke really fallen in love with you?”_

_“Of course not.”_

_“But our aunt says he dances with you wherever you go, and always contrives to be in your company, and calls on you three times a week! He must love you.”_

_“He could never love anyone! He is a heartless, wretched man.”_

_“Then why do you see him?”_

_“Because I intend to punish him for his wickedness! I will make him love me. I will seduce him, and then, at that moment, I will crush him thoroughly. Perhaps then some earl’s daughter can henpeck him into submission, and make a useful husband out of him.”_

_“Gertrude!”_

_“Help me choose a gown for tonight, Charlotte. I won’t have the Duke look anywhere but at me.”_

 

* * *

 

“This book is absurd,” Yuuri says. He closes it and sets it aside in the grass. They’ve taken up residence in the gardens while the three dogs—Makkachin, Vicchan, and Plato—play on the lawn. Ever so often, Makkachin will come over and sniff at Viktor; she seems concerned about him, and does not return to playing until he pats her sufficiently.

Viktor is sprawled out next to him in an ungainly fashion, his jacket rolled up beneath his head, dandelion seeds in his hair. They walked a long way today, while Yuuri showed Viktor one of the fields and described to him the improvements they were making. They talked for a long time about the price of grain, and Viktor asked him more questions about agricultural magic than Yuuri could answer, before Yuuri realized how bright the sun overhead was, and brought Viktor back toward the house where the trees might cast some shade.

Viktor makes an uncomprehending noise.

“What kind of older sister says such nonsense as ‘my dear Charlotte’? I asked my sister for a hat once and she put a frog in it before giving it to me.” Yuuri would also like to ask if having one’s knees around their ankles is even feasible, but frankly, he is afraid of Viktor’s answer.

“Really?” Viktor asks. He looks surprised, but then, his acquaintance with Mari is very slight. Yuuri is not sure he ever made a proper introduction.

“Of course. So then I put mud in all her boots.”

“I thought you liked your sister.”

“I do like my sister. But siblings torment each other.”

“Still,” Viktor says wistfully, “it must be nice to have an older sibling who will look after you.”

“I suppose it is.” Yuuri feels a pang at the longing in Viktor’s voice. Yuuri’s extended family is nonexistent, but he has Mari, and Minako, and his friends, and that has always been enough. He has always known he could rely on them, little though he wanted to.

But Viktor has been alone.

“Do you have friends?”

“Yes,” Viktor says. “I have friends.”

“They did not come to the wedding, though.”

“Chris would not have approved.”

Yuuri winces; he can imagine why Viktor’s friend would not approve of him, and he cannot say that his friend is in any way wrong. If Phichit had come to him and told him he intended to marry for money, Yuuri would certainly have advised against it. And he cannot help but notice that though Viktor speaks of having multiple friends, he only names one. Are the others former friends, he wonders, or does Viktor actually only have the one? Viktor does receive correspondence (which Yuuri scrupulously leaves on his side of the bed and pretends not to see).

“Well,” he says. “You might invite him to visit you now that the weather is good. Summer is near unbearable in London.”

“Chris is nearly as disreputable as I am.”

“Excellent, we will never be visited by Mrs. Boot-Collins again.”

To Yuuri’s delight, Viktor does laugh, without even covering his mouth with his hand to hide it.

“I suppose if that doesn’t work we might recommend her this book,” he says. “I imagine that would scandalize her enough to keep from darkening our doorstep.”

To hear Viktor describe it as theirs, instead of as Yuuri’s alone, is thrilling. Yuuri watches him lay loose and pleased beside him, as if he has always been in this garden, and shivers. If nothing else, Yuuri thinks, he will have to write to the bookseller and thank him. Eros has turned out to be very good for their marital felicity indeed.

Yuuri taps the cover of the book sharply.

“But,” he says, “this chapter only proves what I said about love at first sight correct.”

Viktor frowns at him. “How?”

“If Gertrude had not decided she was set on the Duke after one meeting, she would not be so angry now,” Yuuri says, “and if she were not angry, she would not behave so ridiculously.”

“She has reason to be angry.”

“In all these pages she has never asked him to defend himself,” Yuuri says. “She has not ever tried to know him. How can she claim to have held him in any kind of affection?”

“I think, on the whole,” Viktor says, “it is much easier to love someone if you do not know them.”

“You are wrong about that.”

“Am I?”

“If she loved him, she would want to know everything about him.”

To that Viktor says nothing. Did he love someone without knowing, or was he loved and then abandoned upon further intimacy? What a fool they must have been, Yuuri thinks.

“Viktor?”

“Yes?”

“May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you learn to do magic?”

It is not a question Viktor expected Yuuri to ask, from the expression on his face; his brow furrows briefly in confusion. He folds his hands in his lap in a display of ease that Yuuri does not think is genuine.

“Why do you ask?”

“It must be very important to you.” A gift like Viktor’s is something to crow about, and yet Viktor has clearly kept it secret. Viktor must love spellcraft, Yuuri thinks, to have expended the effort to learn such dangerous and complex spells. “So I wish to know about it.”

Yuuri feels his face heat and stares at the grass. There are words in his throat, unsaid, unthought. He does not dare to look at Viktor, not yet. He does not dare to say anything more. Whatever is in his heart might be dark to him, but he thinks Viktor might read it in his face with a look. He thinks Viktor might be close enough to know him with a word.

**Author's Note:**

> comments are much appreciated!


End file.
